Web Conference 2021.06.30 Curb - openmobilityfoundation/curb-data-specification GitHub Wiki

Web Conference - Curb Working Group

  • Every other week Tuesday call at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 6pm CET

NOTE - today's call is on a WEDNESDAY!

Conference Call Info

Meeting ID: 898 5980 7668 - Passcode 320307
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89859807668?pwd=ZzJrbEpTNVB4WkNqNiszcmFYVzBwZz09

One tap mobile: +13126266799,,89859807668#,,,,*320307# US (New York)

Dial by phone: +1 929 436 2866 (US) (Find your local number)

Agenda

Main Topics

  1. Welcome and process (5 min) - Jascha Franklin-Hodge, OMF
  2. Curb policy use case (10 min) - Mary Catherine Snyder, SDOT
  3. Regulation/Event spec recap (5 min) - Jascha Franklin-Hodge, OMF
  4. Metrics spec discussion (40 min) - Brian Hamlin, SDOT
    • What metrics are useful for cities and curb users?
    • What questions need to be answered?

Organizers

Minutes

Notes

Jascha Franklin-Hodge (OMF) summarized the working group process to date

  • WG has entered the implementation phase
  • Draft CDS data spec to be drafted by end of the calendar year
  • Short-term vision to initially focus on commercial loading of people and goods
  • CDS outputs - standardized ways to express curb regulations, events at the curb (e.g., sensors or analytics platform), and metrics (things that can be derive3d from event data)
  • July meetings will cover pilot project discussions

Curb Policy Use Case presented by Mary Catherine Seattle DOT - Digital Curb Efforts

  • Equity and climate emergency goals are key

  • Critical building access and Urban Freight Lab work highlighted

  • A common data spec will be helpful since curb space is finite, agency strives to be data driven, and its essential to build climate friendly, equitable transportation

  • Updated curb priority policy -new policy guidelines in development

  • Urban goods delivery strategy in progress as well

  • Identify and provide building access needs as economy recovers from COVID

  • Striving to move 30% of all goods delivery to electric modes by 2030

  • Leverage design practices for more efficient loading

  • Pricing the curb

  • Urban Freight Lab partnership - collaboration with senior management from retail and logistics, wholesale firms; UW current research projects: https://depts.washington.edu/sctlctr/research-projects/current

  • Belltown Sensor Project

    • USDOE funded effort
    • Fybr/Lacuna sensors installed in 40 commercial, passenger zones
    • Items learned: urban freight movement includes vehicles of all sizes
    • Research on how load zone availability helps reduce search times. Fake deliveries testing is helping the research effort
    • 6 carrier ridealongs conducted with 4 carriers pre-pandemic - GPS and parking activity documented
    • Slightly more than half the time, carriers parked in authorized zones
    • Driver findings - Dwell times vary based on what's delivered; Avoiding unsafe maneuvers matters to drivers; when they cant find a safe place to stop - cruising, queuing, re-route (but this is dependent on carrier policy);

  • Final thoughts UW has a Common Microhub Pilot occurring PNNLK project - dynamic curns in urban settings research including a curb simulation tool Understanding Urban Commercial Vehicle Driver Behaviors and Decision Making: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/03611981211003575

Regulations and Events Recap

  • Regulations spec - Polygon definition of curb areas, Linear referencing system options, See slides for image
  • Events spec - event IDs, numerous event

CDS Metrics Discussion

  • Question for the group - how do we calculate metrics like occupancy and dwell time?
  • Nick Jonas - turnover an important metric
  • Elias Khoury (City of San Jose) - may need to define turnover more specifically (hourly)
  • Mary Catherine Snyder (Seattle DOT) - I think vehicle size or type of vehicles is helpful but harder to get
  • Henry Espinosa (City of Miami) - collect compliance info - dwelling longer than allowed or breaking an ordinance
  • Regina Clewlow - what info do I need to quantify and share with curb users. Monetary value of curb - how to calculate revenue change
  • Mary Catherine Snyder (Seattle DOT)- For me it's tied to what we're trying to accomplish - do we need more or less load zones, are we meeting climate-emission goals, are we reducing circling/queuing for drivers, reducing driver delivery costs?
  • Akshay Malik (City of Philadelphia) - bookings precede use of space. As use gets more complicated, need to determine use priority. Is the correct person actually using the curb space correctly. Who is booking and using it properly. City of Philadelphia leverages a curb management checklist.
  • Brian Hamlin (Curb WGSC Chair, Seattle DOT) - asked Akshay to share the Philadelphia checklist
  • Jascha Franklin-Hodge (OMF)
    • Encourage all WG members that have a list like Akshay to share with the rest of group
    • How do we structure Metrics in API form? It could be akin to SAE micromobility metrics - well defined calculation methodologies to generate useful outputs. It will help us define what does "occupancy" mean
    • Commercial loading pilots have a lot of different designs - some cities include a reservation component and others don’t for example
  • Regina Clewlow (Populus) - These are the Mobility Metrics that Jascha is referring to.
    • The background: with micromobility (i.e. shared scooters) we found that there were a lot of different ways that cities (and operators) defined vehicles (e.g. deployed vehicle, operational/ non-operational, etc.) and there were no clear definitions. It became very challenging for cities to enforce compliance without clear definitions (and on the flip side for operators to follow the rules) https://www.sae.org/standards/content/mdc00002202004/
  • Akshay Malik (City of Philadelphia) - physical availability of space is key. Philly has avoided sensors rendering physical availability harder to measure
  • Jascha Franklin-Hodge (OMF) - curb WG is lacking commercial user participants in this group and discussion. Please share insight on what commercial users would find useful in terms of metrics
  • Stephen Hanrahan (DDOT) Other than higher fines, I wonder what are the incentives that would encourage curb users to participate in discussions and collaborative efforts on curb management?
  • James Graham (DDOT) will ask DC Freight planners for commercial user context
  • Mary Catherine Snyder (Seattle DOT) - occupancy may be hard to separate from turnover
  • Jascha - parking pricing to reach 80% block face occupancy is used in the parking space so it's interesting to determine if a similar curb utilization goal is needed for curb loading
  • Mary Catherine Snyder (Seattle Dot) - Amazon Flex may not be as aware of regulations like UPS that's been doing it for years.
  • Brian Hamlin (OMF Curb WGSC Chair, Seattle DOT) - may need metrics qualifier for what type of activity is happening - larger vehicle delivering groceries that needs longer dwell time, for example
  • Kenya Wheeler (SFTMTA) - Do we need to consider different classes of commercial spaces? Commercial users vary in their temporal usage of a zone, eg. a PUDO event vs. Freight Delivery. In SF, we have sort of solved for this by designating some commercial spaces for multi-axle vehicles to allocate spaces for larger vehicles that have longer occupancy stays.
  • Henry Espinosa (City of Miami) - may get messy to track different types of occupancy for different vehicles. Besides how much addressing how much should be charged at curb, we.
  • Stephen Hanrahan (DDOT) - is there info on how much curb users value commercial load zone space?
  • Brian Hamlin (Seattle DOT) - Seattle has anecdotal info from the ride-alongs MC described but to Jascha's point we need to engage curb users in this discussion to ensure we set metrics and policy that benefits them
  • Brian Hamlin (Seattle DOT- tricky part of taking all event generating sources into something that's tangible to answer some of our curb questions
  • Jascha Franklin-Hodge (OMF) - this is tough stuff and we don’t aim to define exhaustive list of metrics but it's okay to start small for 1-2 key metrics for beta version of the specs. Please share what you think of Github